After almost a year on the picket line, striking Steelworkers at Local 6500 in Sudbury and Local 6200 in Port Colborne voted about 75 per cent July 9 to ratify a five-year deal with Brazilian mining giant Vale, four days short of a year of going on strike.

Eighty per cent of workers in Sudbury are expected back on the job within four weeks and the remaining 20 per cent within in six weeks.

Make no mistake about it. This was an epic strike and labour confrontation for not only the United Steelworkers and Vale, but for the broader organized labour movement. The stakes couldn’t have been higher.

The customary question to ask after such a long and bitter strike is usually boiled down to who won and who lost? Often, the answer after such a long strike is that no one won; too much money was lost by unionized workers in wages and the company in earnings.

In this case, we’d argue, despite the bitterness and length of the strike, both sides achieved the rare feat of emerging as winners, albeit bloodied, but still standing. The United Steel Workers lived up to their picket line motto: “One day longer, one day stronger.” Every trade unionist in this country owes them a debt of gratitude.

At the same time, to say Vale proved to be a formidable adversary is an understatement. They bargained tougher, harder, and most notably, differently, than the old Canadian Inco ever did. Vale’s take-no-prisoners approach to collective bargaining was as tough as nails.

The company got at least some of the concessions it argued it needs to be profitable; the union preserved the integrity of its collective agreement, giving up some things, but achieving some enhancements. Most importantly for the USW, the contract stands: It has not been gutted, as some feared it would be.

Picket lines that went up July 13 last year at Vale’s Ontario operations were dismantled after the deal was ratified by 75.5 per cent of members who voted in Sudbury and 74 per cent in Port Colborne.

It was the longest strike in Sudbury’s history and the longest strike in Vale's 68-year-history. There have been nine strikes at the former Inco operations in Sudbury since 1958, including an 8 ˝-month one from Sept. 15, 1978 until June 7, 1979. It remains the biggest strike in Canadian history in terms of lost workdays.

Vale says it won't replace about 500 workers who retired during the strike. The new agreement allows the company to eliminate 113 positions, but Vale says it is hopeful more retirements and people who quit during the strike will cover the number.

About 3,000 USW members in Ontario went on strike last July. The workforce at the Sudbury operations has been shrinking steadily from a high of about 20,000 miners in the early 1970s.

The new contract calls for workers to receive a raise of nearly $2.50 an hour by 2014, made up of 90 cents an hour in increases over five years and a cost of living allowance. The average hourly wage in Sudbury when the strike began was about $29 per hour. Workers will also receive a $2,000 signing bonus.

A key issue in the strike was Vale's insistence upon substituting a defined contribution pension plan for new hires in place of the defined benefit or guaranteed plan all employees had before.

While improvements were made from the original offer for a new pension plan for new hires the company was proposing, including provisions related to sickness, disability and benefits, the company largely prevailed on this key point.

But the USW resisted with some success Vale’s attempt to cap production and maintenance workers' nickel bonus. The old nickel price bonus did not have a maximum limit. With Vale dug in on the point, the union managed to up the final offer five per cent in terms of the bonus cap to 25 per cent of workers' straight-time hours versus the 20 per cent Vale originally offered. The nickel bonus, however, won’t be triggered now unless nickel is valued at $3.75 per pound instead of the old price of $2.25 per pound. The price of nickel per pound on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was about $8.68 per pound July 12. The USW says the new nickel bonus plan could still put an extra $15,000 a year in the pocket of the average member when nickel prices are high.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board will decide whether the cases of nine Steelworkers fired during strike should go to arbitration, as the union is seeking. The USW has withdrawn the remainder of its bad faith bargaining complaint against Vale and the company has withdrawn its multiple civil suits against the union.

About 120 United Steelworkers Local 9508 members are still on strike against Vale Inco at its fly-in Voisey's Bay nickel mine in northern Labrador. They went on strike last Aug. 1. Negotiations at Voisey's Bay are due to resume July 19.

The 1,250 United Steelworkers Local 6166 workers here at Manitoba Operations in Thompson inked a three-year collective agreement with Vale Sept. 15, 2008 – the very day Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed. Workers voted 65.5 per cent in favour of the contract, which included wage increases in each year of the agreement consistent with their last contract, and pension improvements.

That deal between Vale and the USW in Thompson has 14 months to run. You can be sure both sides will have Sudbury fresh in their minds still as Sept. 15, 2011 draws close.